This post has been out on the net for awhile, but it’s worth reviewing if you haven’t researched what all goes into improving a site’s ranking within the search engine universe for a given phrase.

Search Ranking Factors on SEOmoz.org

Enjoy!

I just got done doing a little “inventory” of our main consulting site’s rakings (http://smbconsultinginc.com), and we’re moving up the charts and maintaining some valuable positions. 

Business consulting–rank #3 (Google) of 25,200,000 competing pages; #8 (Yahoo) of 1,450,000,000 (that’s BILLION!)

Marketng consulting–rank #8 (Google) of 16,500,000 competing pages; #6 (Yahoo) of 661,000,000

We started out optimizing the site for terms such as “business consulting Louisville” and “small business consulting services,” but the broader (and more competitive) terms have driven more traffic our way and increased awareness much better.  While we rank very well for the “longer tail” terms we set out to rank well in the beginning, the broader terms provide a much better proof of concept of the knowledge we’re sharing in The SEO Bible. 

If you want to rank well, our methods must work pretty well based on the results shared above.  These aren’t overnight wonders either–it’s taken awhile to get here (8 months+), and we’ve been consistently climbing for the last three months so they are fundamenally sound (white hat). 

Why share this information you might ask?  Most people tend to say “show me some results” before they start digging deeper when evaluating SEO firms or training material.